


Fire is Hard to Draw

by ElectricEldritch



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Also a tem, Angst, Artist Reader, F/M, Friends to Lovers, GAD, It's not any of the main characters but someone in the past had committed suicide, OCD, Reader Is Not Chara, Reader Is Not Frisk, Reader has GAD, Reader is an artist, Slow Burn, Suicide, Undertale OC is your art bud, maybe nsfw?, might get a harsher rating later on, reader has OCD, reader is an optimist, reader loves monsters and fantasy, swears, your roommate swears like a sailor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-21 00:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11932179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElectricEldritch/pseuds/ElectricEldritch
Summary: Reader is a college student who takes up residence in a monster dwelling because of better affordability.  You do a lot of your work in the still misspelled Librarby until you find that a certain Fire Elemental doesn't mind you doing homework in his restaurant.  It seems he enjoys silently watching you create.





	Fire is Hard to Draw

**Author's Note:**

> Welp here is my first fanfic! I might open up some voting later on if people are interested!  
> ALSO please note I am a college student so I will try and regularly upload but I can't really promise anything. ALSO 
> 
>  
> 
> PLEASE NOTE the OC won't be a main focus she is mostly there to be a connection to cooleg. And more or less introduce the reader to the canon characters so you will be seeing less of her. (Unless you guys really like her)

AH yes, you loved the smell of regret and pain in the morning… or well.. at 4:00 in the afternoon.  


You sit at your desk in the local library, or should you say Librarby, pencil in hand with multiple anatomy books sprawled across the table. You are currently on summer vacation so you, being the try-hard you are, decide to do personal art studies during the summer. Oh art you beautiful and painful mistress. You carefully study the muscles, analyzing every bit of the page, what makes it work and figuring out what you are not quite getting. You sketch down details and your eyes are constantly flicking between your book and your page constantly. It’s a monster book they brought from the underground.  


Since monsters have come to the surface you have been ecstatic. More people to meet, and another instance of proof that the universe is bigger than anyone expected. You were constantly being reminded of how little humanity knew about the universe but, despite others finding that terrifying, you found it comforting and endlessly fascinating. Of course, you did not consider the monsters purely as a subject to study, they were people who lived their own lives, and you sorely wished that times could have been different so that the monsters and humans had lived together all this time. It makes your heart ache dearly just thinking of being confined to such a place for so long and only to resurface to face more hatred. But, as evidenced by the response to them resurfacing, people were still very judgmental often, and you just decided that you would be extra kind to try and at least somewhat makeup for those sourpusses.  


You flip the page and cannot silently contain your excitement: elementals. The very concept of an elemental was extremely baffling to you on a scientific level. How could something made from energy, like fire, or something constantly in a liquid state, like water, not only be tamed but make up an entire person? You had met many monsters since moving to New Place, as the king named their new settlement, but you still had yet to meet an elemental. You wonder if there were any that lived near you.  


You feel a gentle tug on your arm and your eyes immediately flick over to the source of the tugging, your dear friend Phanta. She is your ever-energetic art bud who is one year behind you in the same college, you often help her out and let her use your assignments as a reference point. While you plug away at monster anatomy, casually asking her questions now and then she works on some human anatomy books and studies. Her bright green eyes light up with energy as they meet yours and her sharp teeth flash as her lips curl into her usual lopsided happy grin. She is taller than you but not by all that much. She takes on a bit of a draconic appearance, and when you first saw her she reminded you a bit of the Argonian race from Skyrim but with sharper features, and wings. Her scales are a beautiful shade of white and blue. Feathers adorn her head and almost make it look like she has a bit of a mohawk. You never asked if it was just the way they grow or if she purposefully styled it that way. At this point you did not even bother since neither option would surprise you. She looks as if she should be graceful, gentle, quiet and swan-like with her build and delicate features, but you know she is anything but. She bounced in her chair trying to contain her excitement; you could practically see the light-bulb shining brightly above her head. You halt what you are working on to calmly address your friend. Her tail flicks and she immediately bursts out:  


“OKAY so I heard that Muffet finally reopened her place and I know that you don’t know who she is but TRUST ME you have to try her donuts. Imma go run and buy us some-“  


“OH you don’t have to do that I have some cash with—"  


“NO NO I insist! Don’t worry about it”  


And with barely a word in before she is off you watch as your friend runs out of the Librarby full speed. You feel bad for her spending your money on you but you try and push those thoughts aside and rationalize through it. She offered to pay. Don’t feel bad. After quietly releasing your held breath uou turn back to your book and flip back to the page on elementals. Man, so interesting, not only that, but it seemed like they were often made up of some of the most difficult things to properly catch on paper. Water, fire, air, all that jazz that made you want to roll into a garbage can and forget about drawing forever. You start to sketch an elegant looking water elemental, but you don’t seem to notice that as you continue your pencil pushes harder and your eyes bulge out more. Why was his so damn hard?! You let out a quiet groan, a small release from the bout of internal screaming you had been doing, and crash your head on the desk with a loud THUMP.  


OKAY so this isn’t working maybe the fire elemental? You sketch out the body roughly and then move on to rendering the fire. Your eyes are almost touching the paper as you try and figure it out. If you were not so frustrated you might have pondered on how fire could be so attractive. You force out a breath and try to ignore the figure as a whole and just take notes of the shapes of the shades in the picture. Slowly you manage to work out some detail with success, but you try and hold off from celebrating too much as you only finished part of the face. You continue to draw for a while, only briefly wondering what is taking your friend so long to get those donuts, but continue to draw until you finally finish. It was… an experience… but you feel like you learned from it. You sit back in your seat somewhat triumphantly and stretch your arms a bit.  


It seems you forgot about gravity though while you were drawing since your stretching immediately turns into mad scrambles to catch yourself from falling. You feel momentum pull you to the ground and you close your eyes and tense your muscles bracing for the inevitable impact.  


But it never came.  


A weird weightless feeling seems to surrounds you and fills you with slight dizziness and your scared mind frantically tries to figure out what happened. Not unlike when you close your eyes against the sun, it seems as if light from an unknown source shines through your eyelids. You cautiously open one eye to be greeted with the bright visage of a fire elemental. At first all you can feel is awe, but very VERY quickly you remember what this firey hero saved you from, and more importantly, what you had been drawing. Heat rises to your cheeks instantly in embarrassment and very quickly you decide that looking anywhere but the source of your art was great. You utter a very shaky thank you as the elemental gently rights your chair to which he responds with a gentle nod. The elemental’s attention seems to be elsewhere however with piqued curiosity, if the playful flickering of their flames and their angled pose were to suggest their emotions.  


You glance up to see their attention caught with your studies; their eyes flicker over the page behind glasses as if they are taking it all in. You are not entirely sure since they don’t speak but they seem to be quite fascinated. Their hand is lifted, almost like the want to touch it but is too shy too. Your blush deepens and normally you might hide your work but at this point you figured that this person has seen your work already so why not. You sheepishly push the paper a little closer to the elemental in the universal signal of "go ahead" so their curiosity may be sated. Their response is immediate but gentle and you cannot help but feel the slightest warmth blossom in your chest that they are both so careful with your work and so interested.  


Since calming down from your embarrassment you are finally able to look over the person who saved you from certain floor doom while they examine your work. They are a fire elemental all right, tall and broad shouldered. They have a strong jaw and a seemingly featureless face that seems to lose all form once it reaches the top of the head where flames take on a life of their own. The monster wears a classy looking coat with a dress shirt and tie underneath. Geez the temperature outside really must not affect them to wear something so heavy. You tap your foot nervously feeling the all too familiar awkward silence weasel its way into your anxiety riddled mind. Small talk small talk…  


“So uh what you in for?” you ask casually with a forced playful smirk. The elemental responds a little hesitantly while rubbing the back of their neck. They gesture to a computer a little way off. When they wiggle the mouse to take the computer out of sleep, a website shows up on screen. It seems to be a site about all sorts of human alcoholic beverages and how to make them. So you aren’t the only one doing research then huh? You glance up at them, feeling slightly more at ease now that you sort of know how to forward the conversation.  


“OH interesting... I never thought about how monster and human alcoholic drinks might differ. How intriguing! I’ve heard about magic uses I wonder if that factors in? OH MAN I wonder if any new drinks will be made combining monster and human techniques!” You ramble, completely forgetting about your new conversation companion. You pull yourself from your musing forcefully and meet the elemental’s eyes sheepishly. You send him an apologetic lopsided smile to which you receive a sound that can only be compared to the gentle crackling of a fire. Their shoulders seem to shake a little bit with each sound. Hmm was that equivalent to them chuckling? They shake their head while still chuckling in a fashion which you could only seem to translate as:  


“Don’t worry about it”  


Before anything else can occur, you hear the loud footsteps of your friend re-entering the library. She seems to have forgotten about the universal rule all libraries have.  


“SO UH (NAME) I AM SUPER SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG BUT I WAS TALKING WITH MUFFET AND HOOOO MAN SHE HAS ADDED SO MANY NEW THINGS TO THE MENU. SO I BOUGHT TWO OF EVERYTHING. It’s time to celebrate. CELEBRATE WHAT?! WHO THE HELL CARES!?” She yells as she rips out a donut from the bag. You look back at your new acquaintance and send them a gentle nod.  


"It was nice to meet you!" you say quietly before hopping off to rejoin your friend..  


**Author's Note:**

> I've seen some people have tumblrs for their fics SO UH here is where I will post stuff related to my fics! I fully intend to see this fic to the end!  
> https://electriceldritch.tumblr.com/


End file.
